^ Sermon 
^nb  Snbitation 
jFor  Eftinfeing  jWen 

The  sermon  printed  in  this  leaflet  was  preached 
at  St.  George’s  Episcopal  Church,  New  York  (the 
largest  free  Episcopal  (Church  in  the  United  States), 
by  the  Rector,  the  Reverend  Doctor  Karl  Reiland. 
on  the  20th  of  February,  1916. 

It  is  thus  republished  by  some  business  men  who 
heard  it,  in  the  belief  that  it  will  have  an  unusual 
appeal  for  other  thinking  men  who  usually  remain 
away  from  church  because  they  resent  the  restric- 
tions that  an  archaic  theology  would  impose  upon 

■ intelligent  thought  and  scientific  research. 

Such  men,  it  is  believed,  will  find  Doctor  Reiland’s 
sermons  stimulating  and  helpful,  both  mentally  and 
morally.  To  get  their  attention  in  this  busy  age, 
this  pamphlet  is  being  distributed  as  an  invitation  to 
all  thoughtful  men  to  come  to  St  George’s  on  any 
convenient  Sunday  morning. 

They  can  ascertain  whether  Doctor  Reiland  is  to 
preach  by  telephoning  “Stu3rvesant  No.  2177.” 

The  church  is  at  the  comer  of  East  16th  Street 
and  StU3Tvesant  Square,  half  a block  east  of  Third 
Avenue.  It  is  about  five  minutes’  walk  from  the  14th 
Street  station  of  the  Subway  and  the  18th  Street 
station  of  the  Third  Avenue  Elevated,  and  can  be 
conveniently  reached  by  the  Broadway,  4th  Avenue, 
3rd  Avenue  and  2nd  Avenue  street  cars. 

The  seats  are  free.  There  are  no  rented  pews. 
As  the  church  is  generally  well  filled,  it  is  better  to 
be  on  time.  The  morning  service  is  usually  over 
about  12:30.  While  this  is  an  invitation  from  men 
to  men,  it  is  not  intended  to  exclude  women  who  are 
likely  to  be  interested  in  sermons  that  are  really 
thoughtful  and  bold  in  their  defiance  of  theological 
convention  when  that  convention  is  in  conflict  with 
freedom  and  independence  of  thought. 

Additional  copies  of  this  pamphlet  enclosed  in 
envelopes  for  mailing  will  be  furnished  upon  appli- 
cation by  mail,  telephone,  or  in  person  to  J.  Noah 
H.  Slee,  42  Broadway,  New  York  (Tel.  No.  2603 
Broad). 

The  lines  below  are  provided  for  any  written 
message  that  the  sender  may  care  to  transmit.  If 
so  used,  the  postage  will  be  two  cents  and  the 
envelope  may  be  sealed,  but  a visiting  card  without 
any  writing  upon  it  may  be  attached,  in  which  case, 
H the  postage  will  be  only  one  cent  if  the  envelope 
is  left  unsealed. 


- 

in  tljp  Qlilg  of  Ntm  ^ork 

Harrtii  511),  I91fi 

Ei}s  iJprtor’s  HfBBagp 

The  Point  of  View 

A good  friend  and  a true  Christian  has  shown 
me  a letter  which  he  received  from  someone  in 
which  the  writer  with  gracious  entreaty  urges 
him  to  consider  the  necessity  of  conversion. 
What  a hackneyed  subject  that  is!  It  is  a good 
letter  for  someone  bound  in  the  wrong  direction, 
to  turn  him  ’round  and  set  him  going  rightly. 
Conversion  means  that,  but  my  friend  has  ever 
gone  in  the  right  direction  from  a child,  and  no 
more  needs  conversion,  as  some  Christians  use 
the  term,  than  he  needs  an  epitaph.  Singular  it 
is  what  modes  of  thought  men  use!  It  is  a great 
study  observing  how  they  get  an  idea,  and  are 
so  entirely  possessed  by  it  as  to  let  all  necessary 
qualifying  ideas  shift  for  themselves.  See  how 
one  can  hold  a book  so  close  to  his  face  as  to 
shut  out  a whole  world;  or  how  he  can  retire 
so  early  and  sleep  so  late  as  never  to  have  seen 
a midnight  sky  or  the  first  tint  of  sunrise,  but 
boast  through  life  of  wonderous  regular  habits. 
Human  opinion  is  most  illusive.  You  may  as 
well  say  where  a butterfly  is  going,  and  why  he 
does  not  go  there,  as  to  say  where  and  why  opin- 
ion sits  as  it  may,  in  human  thought.  It  is  most 
interesting  study,  what  creates,  conditions, 
shapes,  transforms  and  urges  opinion.  “Have  you 
never  been  converted?  Then  you  need  it,  and 
here  are  a dozen  texts  to  prove  it.  You  may  be 
saved  if  you  listen;  you  will  be  damned  if  you 
refuse.”  So  it  goes,  but  someone  may  say,  that 
no  two  texts  mean  the  same  thing;  that  they  have 
varying  significations;  that  they  may  represent 
a writer’s  idea  of  things  in  his  own  day  and  not 
in  our  day;  that  you  cannot  gather  a handful  of 
texts  and  force  them  to  take  on  a certain  mean- 
ing any  more  than  you  can  take  a dozen  kinds  of 
fruit,  force  them  into  a basket  and  offer  them  for 
potatoes.  Conversion  is  only  a change  of  mind, 
heart,  or  purpose,  for  those  who  need  the  change. 
Salvation,  regeneration,  election  and  the  like,  are 
matters  of  development  and  growth.  They  are 
progressive,  not  explosive.  We  are  men,  not 
mushrooms.  Being  “born  again”  is  a matter  of 
hard  work,  not  holy  water.  Regeneration  is  evolu- 
tion, not  an  electric  shock.  In  any  one,  where 
the  process  had  the  right  start,  you  have  a subject, 
not  for  conversion  but  for  congratulation,  and 
he  need  wear  no  text  that  does  not  fit. 

K.  R. 

SERMON 

Preached  at  St.  George’s  Church,  New  York 

February  SO,  1916 

BY  THE  RECTOR 
REV.  KARL  REILAND,  LL.D 


Text:  St.  John  VIII — 32 — “Ye  shall  know  the  truth 

and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free.” 

Knowledge  is  just  as  essential  to  spiritual  and 
moral  progress  as  to  any  other  progress,  and  if,  as 
St.  James  said,  “Faith  without  works  is  dead,”  it 
seems  fitting  to  assert  that  conviction  without 
thought  is  dead  also. 

It  is  undeniably  true  that  we  think,  and  think 
hard,  in  every  other  department  of  knowledge  ex- 
cept the  religious  and  the  consequence  is  that  re- 
ligious thinking  always  lags  behind,  until  it  is  no  un- 
common thing  to  hear  people  saying  that  when 
you  enter  a church  you  must  leave  your  brains  at 
the  door,  much  as  you  leave  your  umbrella  when 
you  enter  the  museum  or  gallery  of  art,  lest  you 
poke  at  something  and  injure  it.  Thus  we  have  a 
large  number  of  people  who  live  by  the  religious 
thought  of  some  previous  century  and  who  carry 
from  some  former  age  the  Gods  they  worship,  just 
as  Rachel  desired  to  do  when,  in  running  away  with 
her  husband  Jacob,  she  stole  her  father’s  Gods  and 
took  them  secretly  along. 

The  result  of  this  is  more  costly  to  the  general  dis- 
tribution of  decent  living  than  is  usually  thought, 
because  the  mental  light  gained  in  other  fields  re- 
veals the  rough  edges  of  religious  conceptions  and 
w’e  discover  our  theological  misfits.  We  refuse  to 
apply  to  life  what  does  not  fit  it,  just  as  we  refuse 
to  wear  father’s  clothes,  or  even  those  which  were 
ours,  in  our  younger,  slenderer  days. 

The  truth  is,  what  little  religious  thinking  we  do 
has  dropped  down  into  the  medulla  where  the  nat- 
ural reflexes  are  and  seldom  rises  into  the  full  flush 
of  consciousness  in  the  cortex.  There  is  an  epi- 
demic of  orthopedic  moral  deformity — to  dip  into 


the  terms  of  plastic  surgery — which  accounts  for  the 
irregular  way  in  which  we  walk  as  opposed  to  the 
regular  orthodox  way  in  which  we  think  we  think. 
The  will  and  the  mind  do  not  connect  at  the  heart 
and  hence  it  is  that  many  of  us  “are  better  than  our 
Creeds.” 

The  result  is  a malformation  of  the  religious  con- 
science which  does  not  know  just  where  it  is  or  how 
it  got  there,  and  makes  havoc  amid  sense  percept 
and  cognition. 

Conscience  is  not  “an  inherent  divinity  pronounc- 
ing infallible  judgments  of  moral  truth.”  It  is,  as 
many  have  pointed  out,  the  reflection  in  each  heart 
of  the  light  which  “lighteth  every  man  coming  into 
the  world” ; and  in  proportion  as  it  lights  up  the 
dark  recesses  of  our  nature,  we  become  the  “lights 
of  the  world.” 

All  the  powers  of  man  including  his  God-given 
rational  faculty  must  do  their  honest  work  if  the 
character  is  to  give  the  right  light.  Each  faculty, 
just  as  each  color  of  the  spectrum,  must  contribute 
its  part  to  the  prism  of  conscience  before  it  can 
give  out  its  rightful  reflection,  a white  light,  and  be 
“void  of  offense  toward  God  and  toward  man.”  In 
the  synthetic  society  of  gifts  the  intellect  has  a chief 
place.  A badly  nourished  intellect  means  a con- 
science off-color.  Here  are  examples  from  legend 
and  history.  Abraham,  taking  his  son  to  the  moun- 
tain— expounded  as  a type  of  Christ,  which  it  is  not 
— to  offer  him  as  a sacrifice — which  he  did  not — is  a 
type  of  conscience  that  saved  itself  in  the  nick  of 
time.  Elijah  who  turned  murderer  from  being  sent 
a missionary,  and  wanted  to  die  of  remorse,  because 
he  was  no  better  than  his  fathers ; Elisha,  with  a 
double  portion  of  his  Master’s  spirit,  cursing  forty 
lads  to  be  devoured  of  bears  “in  the  name  of  the 
Lord” ; Paul  at  Stephen’s  death ; and  the  younger 
Pliny,  punishing  harmless  Christians,  are  illustra- 
tions of  a good  conscience  at  its  worst. 

Several  things  have  succeeded  in  confusing  clear 
religious  thinking  and  in  distorting  the  idea  of  a 
healthy  conscience.  No  one  has  been  more  successful 
in  the  analysis  of  our  time  than  a certain  “unsafe” 
non-conformist  writer  who  is  helping  me  in  this  ser- 
mon. He  speaks  of  “aberration,”  the  ban  on  thought 
and  “exclusions.”  I wish  to  speak  of  three  things 
more  or  less  expressive  of  these, 

[2] 


1.  There  is  a type  of  religious  temperament 
which  exists  in  an  atmosphere  where  the  pressure 
is  not  fourteen  pounds  to  the  square  inch,  but  only 
about  two  and  a half.  1 mean  the  delicately  attenu- 
ated, highly  sensitive,  exquisitely  refined  species; 
the  mystical,  transcendent,  vague  and  illusive  order ; 
the  transported,  quietistic,  gnosiological,  absolutely 
saved,  psychically  perfect,  supernaturally  elevated 
being.  You  find  your  holy  man  closed  up  for  life 
in  a Thebitan  monastery ; or  in  your  Anchoret  of 
the  desert;  St.  Francis  with  his  vision,  stigmata  and 
miracles.  Their  offspring  are  with  us  in  many  vary- 
ing forms  today ; the  esoteric  spirituals  and  the 
brotherhood  of  hot  house  holiness.  I do  not  under- 
stand them  at  all.  Their  language  is  not  mine.  I 
want  something  concrete  and  practical,  as  well  as 
abstract  and  ideal,  from  that  word  “spiritual.”  In 
the  language  of  the  New  Testament  I can  read  what 
the  “fruits  of  the  spirit”  are,  and  in  the  Gospel,  Jesus 
very  clearly  said  “by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them.”  That  brings  something  rational  down  to  this 
poor  old  earth  where  I live  and  I can  deal  with  the 
subject  on  the  basis  of  human  experience,  for  a 
salvation  here,  not  hereafter.  These  people  of  whom 
I speak  may  be  God’s  very  best,  I do  not  know,  but 
I do  not  want  anyone  to  tell  us  that  this  method  is 
the  one  for  all  of  us,  for  we  cannot  use  it;  it 
is  beyond  or  apart  from  the  thoroughfares  of  gen- 
eral human  experience  and  I deny  to  this  type  the 
exclusive  right  to  legislate  for  us  in  the  realm  of 
religious  thought.  It  discourages  the  average 
man  who  cannot  understand,  and  thinks  he  must 
do  so,  or  dwell  “without  the  camp”  of  the  elect. 
This  class  is  a temperamental  minority  and  not 
necessarily  a model  for  the  rational,  religious  con- 
science. 

2.  Next  is  the  familiar  attitude  of  the  safe  toward 
the  unsafe,  the  orthodox  to  the  suspected,  the  rap- 
tured to  the  rational.  You  know  how  easily  the  mark 
of  Cain  is  voted  to  the  rash  seeker  for  truth  who 
dares  to  question  the  opinion  “handed  down”  or  strike 
off  upon  the  unblessed  track  of  individual  inquiry.  The 
dissenter,  non-conformist,  schmismatist  and  heretic  are 
very  badly  burned  at  the  stake  of  traditional  conviction 
today.  '‘Hence  that  ‘castration  of  the  intellect”  to 
use  Nietzsche’s  terrible  phrase  which  for  centuries 
characterized  ecclesiastical  procedure;  the  feeling  that 

[3] 


led  Augustine  to  assert  that  schismatics  would  suffer 
eternal  punishments  ‘although  for  the  Name  of  Christ 
they  had  been  burned  alive’ ; which  found  voice  in 
Cardinal  Pole’s  dictum  that  murder  and  adultery  were 
not  to  be  compared  in  heinousness  with  heresy;  and 
made  the  gentle  Kebel  regard  scholars  who  applied 
modern  scientific  criticism  to  the  Bible  as  ‘men  too 
wicked  to  be  reasoned  with;  and  Erasmus,  declare  that 
‘our  theologians  call  it  a sign  of  holiness  to  be  unable 
to  read.’  ” We  feel  a thrill  today  as  we  read  of 
Galileo,  with  his  pathetic  little  30-inch  telescope,  angrily 
ordered  before  the  tribunal  to  have  his  wisdom  and 
spirit  put  upon  the  index,  though  the  pope  could  not 
put  the  earth  there.  You  would  think  Pasteur  was 
inventing  a microbe  out  of  nothing  and  intended  to 
hoodwink  the  scientific  world  into  insanity,  to  read 
the  vicious  treatment  they  accorded  that  patient  and 
persistent  saviour  of  human  suffering.  Darwin  was 
a devil  in  disguise  to  suggest  a theory  which  did 
violence  to  Genesis  and  Usher’s  date  for  the  creation 
of  man.  The  scientist  creates  nothing;  he  simply  dis- 
covers what  is  there  and  declares  it,  so  unlike  many 
theologians  who  discover  what  is  not  there  and  declare 
it, — as  though  you  could  sin  against  God  by  looking 
earnestly  into  that  which  He  has  made,  knowing  all 
you  can  of  everything  there  is  everywhere  and  always ; 
as  though  the  good  reputation  of  God  depended  upon 
shutting  off  inquiry  concerning  His  own  doings.  This 
habit  is  far  reaching.  Our  theological  students  are 
seldom  encouraged  to  think.  Their  thinking  is  done 
for  them  and  they  are  only  expected  to  receive  and 
remember.  Last  week  a student  showed  me  his  ex- 
amination paper  with  a section  crossed  out  and  his 
mark  lowered  because  he  failed  to  answer  the  question 
“properly.”  He  said  “Jesus  cast  out  devils”  and  he 
should  have  said  “demons,”  not  “devils,”  for  that  is 
what  he  was  taught.  I would  like  to  ask  the  pro- 
fessor to  get  a specimen  of  each,  so  that  I might  take 
them  to  the  Rockefeller  Institute,  stain  cross  sections, 
put  them  under  the  microscope  and  get  a pathological 
reading  of  the  difference.  I am  sure  some  of  my 
medical  friends  in  this  congregation  this  morning 
would  be  glad  to  assist  my  unscientific  efforts  with 
devils  and  demons.  A student  should  be  encouraged 
to  do  all  the  thinking  he  is  capable  of,  as  freely  as 
his  faculty  goes,  and  he  should  meet  a helpful,  gentle, 
sympathetic  inducement  to  express  his  whole  mind. 

[4] 


I know  what  it  is  to  be  shot  through  with  suspicion, 
branded  a heretic,  labelled  unsafe,  and  I know  now 
who  really  and  richly  deserved  the  distinction  of  these 
degrees  eagerly  conferred  by  shallow  scholarship  and 
limp  intellects.  I have  only  one  Commentary  on  the 
Bible;  (I  threw  away  one  of  my  Commentaries  and 
sent  two  to  African  missionaries — God  help  the  na- 
tives) it  was  recommended  by  a great  scholar  and 
edited  by  a great  Bishop.  I keep  it  to  find  out  mostly 
what  not  to  say.  The  other  day  I wondered  what  it 
would  say  about  that  verse  in  Genesis : 

“And  the  Lord  God  made  for  Adam  and  for  his 
wife  coats  of  skins.” 
so  I took  it  down  and  read 

“coats  of  skins — Animals  therefore  were  killed 
even  in  Paradise  nor  is  it  certain  that  man’s  diet 
was  until  the  flood  entirely  vegetarian  (reference) 
but  undoubtedly  the  food  originally  assigned  to 
man  was  vegetable.  Until  sin  entered  the  world 
no  sacrifices  could  have  been  offered,  if  therefore 
there  were  the  skins  of  animals  offered  in  sacrifice, 
as  many  suppose,  Adam  must  in  some  way,  im- 
mediately after  the  fall,  have  been  taught  that 
without  shedding  of  blood  is  no  remission  of  sin, 
but  God  will  accept  a vicarious  sacrifice.” 

This  is  really  too  fascinating  for  abbreviation,  and  yet 
it  touches  very  definite  orthodox  opinions  in  pulpit 
and  seminary.  These  same  old  “coats  of  skins”  still 
I fit  some  intellectual  shapes,  and  hang  conspicuously 
I with  religious  regalia  today. 

j The  real  difficulty  is  with  the  background  con- 
ditions which  the  things  I have  been  saying  reflect. 
Many  pulpits  are  not  free  to  deliver  fearlessly  the 
larger  convictions  and  truths  which  must  be  preached 
if  men  are  to  be  drawn  to  the  attractiveness  of  Christ’s 
simple  gospel.  The  theological  students  for  the  most 
part  cannot  afford  to  think  honestly  and  openly  for 
if  they  did  they  would  be  in  danger  of  “godly  admon- 
ition” from  their  superiors  or  else  find  themselves 
' travelling  in  a land  of  promise  with  many  of  their 
professors,  self  restrained  prisoners  on  the  nether  side 
I of  Jordan,  constituting  a difficult  situation.  There 
are  young  college  men  who  have  told  me  frankly  they 
could  not  go  into  the  ministry  and  keep  faith  with 
I their  scientific  and  general  knowledge.  The  con- 
’ science  which  blocks  free  expression  of  thought  and 
. leans  upon  an  intellectual  crutch  cannot  reproach  me 

[5] 


in  advising  students  to  develop  their  capacity  for 
independent  thinking  and  private  judgment.  A man’s 
trust  in  God  is  to  be  measured  very  largely  by  the 
way  he  trusts  himself,  and  much  of  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  day  is  nothing  more  than  “skepticism  con- 
cerning the  divine,”  as  the  term  is  used,  and  really 
reaches  back  to  the  man-made  institutions  and  in- 
terpretations with  which  the  Holy  Spirit  has  had 
little,  and  the  human  spirit  much,  to  do.  A full, 
free,  active  truth-seeking  intellect  is  the  best  solvent 
religious  faith  can  have,  for  the  seeker  finds,  and  the 
pure  in  heart  will  see  God  most  clearly. 

3.  The  ridiculous  side-stepping  of  “consistent” 
religious  thought  and  its  exercise  of  what  amounts 
to  a class  rather  than  a social  conscience  would 
discourage  attempts  at  fixation  and  drive  us  to  sus- 
pect ourselves  mentally,  if  it  were  not  for  a sense 
of  humor,  and  a confusion  of  ideas  actually  funny. 
The  categories  of  religious  and  secular  things  in 
different  people  is  a study  in  delights  at  any  century 
that  you  may  please  to  examine.  It  reads  as  amus- 
ingly as  a chapter  of  the  Salic  law  and  makes  one 
wish  for  a John  Seldon  to  write  it  up.  You  need 
only  turn  to  our  Puritan  progenitors  or  the  hymn- 
book  we  habitually  use  to  see  the  world-renouncing 
theory  raised  to  the  Nth  power.  It  does  not  seem 
to  have  impressed  anybody  that  “God  so  loved  the 
world,”  and  that  therefore  it  might  be  God-like  to 
love  it  too.  It  does  not  take  a casuist  to  distinguish 
the  vain  from  the  valuable  in  it,  and  certain  I am, 
that  there  is  more  value  in  more  things  than  at  first 
appears  and  our  children  are  surely  aiming  to  deter- 
mine it.  They  will  find  it  in  art  and  music,  in  recrea- 
tion and  a right  use  of  time ; they  will  count  the 
theatre  and  the  opera  among  the  great  influences 
in  the  world,  directing  and  shaping  human  destiny 
and  will  lift  these  into  the  purity  and  power  they 
might  now  have  if  we  could  see  it.  In  Shakespeare’s 
day  no  respectable  woman  went  to  the  theatre  unless 
she  was  heavily  veiled,  and  no  woman  took  part  in 
the  plays,  for  these  parts  were  played  by  “youths  of 
uncracked  voice.”  Everybody  connected  with  the 
institution  was  under  the  ban,  yet  Samuel  Pepys 
enjoyed  the  plays  and  railed  at  the  preachers  and 
their  sermons.  The  ban  is  not  entirely  lifted  now — 
perhaps  that  is  why  there  is  so  much  to  be  desired 
of  the  stage — for  within  seven  years  a great  and 


[6] 


wonderful  rector  said  to  me  “that  a minister  lost 
caste  by  g’oing  to  the  theatre.”  Your  wealthy  people 
can  do  what  they  list  Sunday  or  weekday.  Europe 
or  the  country  in  summer,  South  and  elsewhere  in 
winter,  and  on  Sunday  motor  or  golf  as  the  spirit 
moves.  It  may  move  them  to  church,  but  at  any  rate 
they  reserve  the  right  to  legislate  for  the  work-all- 
the-week,  tenement  house  east-sider  and  say  what 
he  shall  not  do  with  his  late  evenings  and  Sunday 
afternoons.  Why?  Perhaps  because  they  pay  pew 
rents,  and  money  talks.  These  “supporters”  can 
indulge  in  their  excesses  and  nerve  racking  inven- 
tions all  night  till  dawn,  and  some  of  them  can- 
not tell  you  the  day  of  the  week ; they  do  not  ask 
the  Church  to  set  them  right  but  go  to  Hot  Springs 
for  the  cure,  yet,  they  have  been  known  to  object 
to  a Sunday  afternoon  song  rehearsal  for  the  “east- 
siders”  while  they  were  at  golf,  and  to  urge  a pro- 
hibition against  sailing  a boat  on  Sunday,  when 
nobody  but  God’s  own  breeze  did  the  work  and  they 
themselves  were  working  an  automobile  Jehu  over- 
time. Why  not  cure  the  whole  sickly  secular  cate- 
gory by  the  only  remedy  that  can  cure?  Whatever 
a big  man  does  he  does  in  a big  way  and  it  always 
seems  right.  By  the  same  token  whatever  a good 
man  does  he  honors  and  elevates  by  what  he  is. 
Wiy  not  begin  to  take  the  kinks  out  of  this  con- 
science and  grow  a soul  so  sure  of  its  own  generous 
integrity  and  self-respect  that  he  finds  God  in  a wide 
range  of  things,  looks  for  the  central  truth  at  the 
center  of  nearly  every  falsehood  and  discovers  that 
the  truth  alone  shall  make  him  absolutely  “free.” 
Wherever  “righteousness  and  peace  kiss  each 
other,”  or  “mercy  and  truth  are  met  together,”  there 
j are  possibilities  and  these  places  and  times  are  mani- 
fold and  promising.  The  accidents  of  such  an  ex- 
perience might  find  us  humbly  and  receptively  in 
church  or  with  the  Gospel  in  our  hand,  or  on  our 
knees — who  knows.  The  world,  with  such  a con- 
science, would  be  close  to  heaven,  and,  instead  of 
devils  or  demons,  angels  unawares  ; i.e.,  better  things 
in  almost  everybody  than  we  thought.  We  might 
live  so  that  our  children  could  be  encouraged  to 
imitate  us  instead  of  our  being  under  the  necessity 
of  forbidding  them  to  do  so ; we  might  discover  that 
men  are  as  honestly  holden  to  that  standard  of  moral 
social  conscience  required  of  women  as  the  women 

[7] 


themselves ; or  that  there  is  no  separate  table  of 
commandments  for  any  day  or  duty  which  applies 
only  to  the  poor.  And  lastly,  we  might  be  inspired 
to  apply  on  a week  day  some  of  the  things  we  say 
on  Sunday  and  do  not  mean,  as  good  discipline  for 
pretending  to  believe  much  that  we  confess  and  do 
by  no  means  practice.  In  Puritan  days  they  awoke 
the  sleepers  in  the  churches,  but  today  it  is  a sign 
of  piety  to  sleep  intellectually,  and  bless  one’s  self 
at  not  having  a doubt  or  a question  mark  disturb  his 
seventeenth  century  nap. 

Our  customary,  corrugated  thinking  is  so  bad  that 
we  must,  it  seems,  actually  “get  away  from  God,  in 
order  to  find  Him.”  I mean,  we  must  get  away  from 
the  Conventional  God,  the  Conventional  Jesus,  in 
order  to  get  a clear  view.  Under  the  narrow  minded 
programme  so  prevalent  today  we  are  in  no  more 
danger  of  working  out  our  own  salvation  than  was 
Sisyphus  in  danger  of  landing  his  impetuous  rock 
on  the  mountain.  Knowledge,  more  of  it ; intellect 
more  honest ; plain  common  sense  and  straight 
thinking  in  religion  as  in  other  walks  of  life  will 
kindle  the  embers  of  a dying  enthusiasm  for  spiritual 
things.  I like  that  flash  of  Paul  in  his  Philippian 
letter : “Finally,  brethren,  whatsoever  things  are 

true,  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatso- 
ever things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of 
good  report ; if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be 
any  praise,  think  on  these  things. 


[8] 


